Puzzles and Mystery

This week it’s Trinity Friday, Saturday, Sunday at our services. It is one of the great puzzles of the Christian affirmations of faith that God is one God, and yet we know him as Three – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is a puzzle, but it’s a puzzle if you try to work it out intellectually. To live with it’s more of a mystery and it’s much easier to enter into a mystery. It is not easy explaining to those of Islamic faith in the country where we live, the puzzle of the Trinity – they often can mistake our belief as being a belief in three gods, or that the Trinity is obviously Father, Mother, and Son. It is not three gods, but one God, and yet that oneness is something that has a bit of a mystery about it. While someone of faith from any religion would say that God is far above our human comprehension, Christianity seems to me to be one that is the most comfortable about expressing it’s understanding of God in such a way as even the explanation is a little bit beyond human comprehension. We are comfortable living with an idea of God, but the nature of God is still mysterious, even though he is so close to us we could say he is IN us. We believe in a God who is a bit beyond our abilities to understand, and yet we believe in a God who has revealed himself and spoken to us in many and various ways. In these last days he speaks to us through his Son. He speaks to us also through his Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us to baptise people in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, baptising into a faith in one God. We will hear more of this, this weekend – Friday 9.30am in Jebel Ali, Saturday 9.30am in Academic City, and Sunday 7.30pm in Jebel Ali.

PS. The picture is of me in the new Doha airport last week at the Gulf Clergy Day. I was wondering if I could work it into the thinking on the Trinity above but couldn’t. Just wanted to say thanks to the parish for sending me. It was a good day and we spend quite a bit of time thinking about how when different religions try to talk to each other, we find each other a bit of a mystery because we start from different assumptions.

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The team in the office were all so helpful and easy to work with – thank you very much. The session ahead of our wedding was so meaningful, we both walked away from that feeling uplifted and excited about our big day!